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I am excited to share some great news with our valued customers. Last month TeamPages was acquired by ACTIVE Network®, the premier global marketplace for activities and events and an industry-leading provider of intelligence solutions. We’ve joined forces with ACTIVE Network to offer a comprehensive, robust and scalable product portfolio for sports organizations of all sizes and complexity. Click here to view the press release.

ACTIVE serves over 36,000 organizers annually who manage 650,000+ activities and events globally. As a customer of ACTIVE Network | TeamPages, you will continue to access the technology and customer service that you’ve come to expect from TeamPages. I am excited to introduce you to the benefits of ACTIVE Network’s world-class software, service, capabilities and security infrastructure as well.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss the new options you have as an ACTIVE Network | TeamPages customer, please don’t hesitate to contact me. We’re here for you and look forward to continuing to serve you as we develop innovative technology solutions for your organization and teams.

Have you ever tried to use your logo file for something and noticed that your image has a white background? This looks fine on white documents or screens, but if your logo is being displayed on a color or image, you’ll want to get rid of that pesky background!

On TeamPages, you can upload your logo in the settings area of your website. TeamPages uses this logo in a few places throughout the site.

Default banner display

Mobile header

Favicon (that little logo in the browser tab)

Team Logos

In some cases, the logo will be on a colored background, so it is always best to upload a logo with a transparent background. Don’t worry, it’s easy! We are going to use Pixlr, a free image editing tool!

2. Double click on the lock symbol in the layers window to unlock your logo so you can edit it. The lock will change into a checkmark.

3. Grab the magic wand tool and click on your logo background. You should have the background completely selected with one click. Your selection will be marked with moving dashed lines or ‘marching ants’ as they are called.

4. Hit delete or backspace to remove the selected background. You should now see a checkerboard background. This indicates transparency.

5. To deselect, go to the edit menu and choose deselect all.

6. Save your new logo file as a .png file. Do not save it as a jpeg. PNG files allow for transparent backgrounds and JPEGs do not.

Upload your new logo to your TeamPages website in the settings area under the ‘logo and colors’ tab.

We hope you have found this post on removing the background from your logo helpful! Please comment if you have any questions.

It always feels so good to update a well-used feature in TeamPages in order to make it the best experience possible. We have long known our documents widget and uploader was not the most user-friendly tool, particularly for organizations with massive folder structures and a lot of documents. We have stripped this tool down and built it back up with the following changes:

On-page file uploader

Improved category creator

Drag and drop re-ordering

Let’s take a look at this updated feature!

If you have the documents widget turned on, you will see it on the homepage of the website. Here it will showcase your documents and provide a link to view all or add new. The widget display of the documents is relatively unchanged.

When you click through to the documents page, either via the widget link or a menu item, you will see all the documents you have uploaded. To add a new document, simply click the ‘add document’ button at the top of the list.

An uploader form will open on-page where you can choose your file, give it a name, adjust permissions, and email it to your members. Any new documents will be added to the bottom of the list.

If you would like to add a document to an existing category, you can do that too! Beside each category, you will see a link to add a document. The uploader form will open inside the category you have selected and your document will be added to the bottom of the category list.

To add a new category, simply click ‘add category’ at the top of the page and give your category (folder) a name. The new category will be listed at the bottom of the documents list. Click and hold to drag it into position. You can also nest categories inside other categories.

You can now drag and drop all of your documents and categories into any position you wish. Documents will always go to the bottom of a category list if dropped into a closed category.

There you have it! Not more cumbersome uploader, un-intuitive category picker, or painful one-up/one-down re-arranging. We hope you enjoy the new documents tool and please let us know what you think!

It’s almost 2017 and the landscape of youth sport growth, development, and outreach has changed since millennials (most of you reading this) began playing sports. There’s a new businesslike feel surrounding club expansion and outreach that reflects both a boom in youth sports and companies realizing the exposure potential. Understanding the role marketing plays in your organization will help you do more than secure funds; you’ll be able to fully realize the club’s vision and enrich the lives of the most important stakeholder – the kids.

Marketing does not equal fundraisingWhen organizations throw all of their resources and communications personnel towards strictly fundraising activities it may actually be holding them back. It is, of course, important to secure funds through sponsors, fundraising events, and prompting donors. However, proper marketing communications will reach further than this and includes many more activities that would possibly seem useless if your only goal was to meet fundraising targets.

This is not to say that there is not some overlap in both fundraising and marketing strategies, but when you fully dive into creating a dynamic plan for your club you’ll see why you may not be doing enough right now.

Have a dedicated marketing/business development committeeYour board should be ensuring that there are people (or at least one person) whose sole responsibility is marketing communications. In order to be done effectively, the job is too onerous to be split up between multiple volunteers who are most likely already spread out too thin. After all, most boards are made up of volunteers who have full-time jobs and family commitments, and taking on marketing duties to, say, the vice-president will prove insufficient. The duties of your marketing team will include:

Club “brand” development and awareness

Event and program promotion

Community engagement

Collaboration with companies and other clubs

Digital marketing, website, and social media management

Relationship building with local companies, municipality, etc.

Keeping the organization relevant and constantly involved in the community

Having someone with a background in marketing/promotion/branding is definitely a bonus. Don’t be afraid to ask around and use the club as a network to find the right person!

Benefits of a more involved marketing effortYou will begin to realize your organization’s ultimate goals taking form if you keep a high value on marketing communications. People in the community will begin to think of you as synonymous to the activities performed by your marketing committee. This gives you the power to really position yourself by reflecting your message in these activities. You will be able to create a positive association with your club to the community, business leaders, and local government. At the same time, you’ll be gaining knowledge and developing relationships that will help drive you in a direction that will differentiate you from other clubs who aren’t putting in this effort. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, fundraising is not completely exclusive from these marketing efforts and you’ll notice a natural increase in club funds.

What hasn’t changed – keeping your mission and vision #1The overshadowing governor in all of this is that you stay true to your vision. This will be the thing that guides all of your marketing and fundraising decisions and you’ll want to keep it in mind every time you plan on moving ahead with a new sponsorship request, event, or collaboration. The best part about this is that if you truly stay consistent and in line with your big picture goals, the community at large will see this in your carefully planned activities and be even more receptive to supporting you.

Love sports stats? How about some recent statistics that may have a bearing on what you can expect for your program in upcoming years? Here are some rather interesting, shocking, or (at least for me) unexpected facts about youth sports that may guide how you run things in the future.

Youth Participation in sports dropped from 30.2% in 2008 to 26.6% in 2015 (Project Play)Probably the most important trend to keep an eye on. Participation in youth sport has, unfortunately, been dropping over the last decade. The reason for this deserves a far more comprehensive analysis than I can provide here, but some factors include rising costs/decreasing income, the rise of e-sports, and pressure to specialize too early. In fact, this CBC article describes how “most kids quit because they think they’re not good enough — a by-product, experts say, of the hyper-competitive environment that lords over most youth sports.Implication: Along with doing as much as possible to lower the cost entry barrier to sports, parents and coaches should remember that youth sports should be mainly about the kids – make it fun for them and they’ll enjoy it, plain and simple. There are many benefits to sports participation other than going pro or picking up a scholarship.

From 2014 to 2015, 43% of parents reported an increase in sports fees paid to schools (Forbes)

I’m willing to bet that this isn’t a huge shock to most parents out there. The underlying problem here is that the cost of youth sports is rising. If this trend continues, we will see less kids able to continue or even begin playing sports.Implication: A stronger effort on fundraising and community interaction may be needed in your program. You may need to have a fully dedicated marketing individual or team to work on ways to keep sponsors and new donors active with your club.

Multi-Sport Athletes have become less common (Project Play)The average kid between the ages of 6 and 17 played less than 2 sports in 2015. This is important as specialization can actually be harmful to the body. A 2016 University of Wisconsin study of more than 1,000 athletes at 27 high schools found that 49 percent of specialized athletes sustained an injury, compared with only 23 percent of multisport athletes.Implication: Again, sports should be about having fun, building team skills, and getting kids moving. Do you remember playing 5, 6, or more sports throughout your childhood? Allow your kids to enjoy their athletic activities and try new things.

About 27 percent of U.S. public high schools will not have any sports by the year 2020 if the current trends continue (CNBC).

From 2009-2011, $3.5 billion was cut from schools’ sports budgets. The sports that we all enjoyed taking part in at school may dwindle away as we watch our Gen Z kids go through the public school system.Implication: This is an issue centered more around public services funding than anything, but it’s important to note as it means you, as a parent, may have to put in a stronger effort to source out affordable sports programming in the community. Or, perhaps you want to look into starting your own nonprofit sports organization.

Adolescents who play sports are eight times as likely to be active at age 24 as adolescents who do not play sports (Aspen Project).

It’s not all bad! We just need to do our best to get kids moving and active. The benefits of regular activity for our kids (and us) are seemingly endless.

Implication: Make sports affordable, make them enjoyable, and remember that your kids’ happiness is more important than your desire for them to be the best.

Staying hydrated is one of the most important things to remember when participating in sports or other athletic activities, and it’s even more important for children and adolescents. Dehydration not only leaves your child tired and listless on the field, but it can lead to more serious problems the longer he or she goes without water. Young people are at elevated risk for dehydration when the weather is hot. However, dehydration can strike anywhere and any time they are participating in strenuous physical activity and not replenishing their fluids with water or sports drinks.

Parents watching their kids play from the stands also should be watching for indicators that their children might be showing the first signs of dehydration, which include dry lips or tongues, sunken eyes, apathy or lethargy, irritability, dizziness and excessive fatigue. These are red flags that parents should pull their children aside and tell them to take a break to rest and rehydrate. Most children won’t take themselves out of the game due to embarrassment or a desire to keep playing, so parents have to be mindful of the warning signs. If left untreated, dehydration can lead to more-serious heat-related illnesses, including heat cramps and heatstroke.

Just as kids often are so eager to keep playing that they will ignore the warning signs of dehydration, most kids take the field without ever being properly hydrated to play sports in the first place. In fact, the majority of kids and adolescents who play youth sports are dehydrated when they start playing. To make sure your children are properly hydrated before, during and after their sporting events, consult the following chart, which also contains some helpful information that will make it easier for you to encourage your children to stay hydrated throughout the day. Keeping your children hydrated while they play is the best way to ensure they can continue to give it their all on the field.